January 1999
- From DevMud: Database module Greg Connor
- From DevMud: Database module Mik Clarke
- From DevMud: Database module Greg Connor
- From DevMud: Database module J C Lawrence
- From DevMud: Database module Greg Connor
- ADMIN: Resends and possible duplicates J C Lawrence
- Info about different skill systems Emil Eifrem
- Info about different skill systems Nathan F Yospe
- Info about different skill systems Ben Greear
- Info about different skill systems Emil Eifrem
- Info about different skill systems Ben Greear
- Info about different skill systems Emil Eifrem
- Info about different skill systems Nathan F Yospe
- Info about different skill systems Travis S. Casey
- Info about different skill systems Mik Clarke
- New features for ScryMUD (Player-run Shops) Ben Greear
- [OT Humor] Mudder's Rhapsody Jon A. Lambert
- [OT Humor] Mudder's Rhapsody Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- [OT Humor] Mudder's Rhapsody The Wildman
- Guild/skill/spell relation (or "webs") Petri Virkkula
- Guild/skill/spell relation (or "webs") David Bennett
- mobile movement Matthew Mihaly
- mobile movement Adam Wiggins
- mobile movement Koster, Raph
- mobile movement Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- mobile movement David Bennett
- mobile movement Kylotan
- mobile movement quzah [softhome]
- mobile movement Ling
- mobile movement J C Lawrence
- mobile movement Oliver Jowett
- mobile movement Oliver Jowett
- mobile movement Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- mobile movement Richard Woolcock
- mobile movement J C Lawrence
- mobile movement Ling
- mobile movement Marc Hernandez
- mobile movement J C Lawrence
- mobile movement Ling
- mobile movement Holly Sommer
- mobile movement Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- mobile movement Koster, Raph
- mobile movement Chris Gray
- Intelligent WebGlimpse archive searching at Kanga.Nu (was J C Lawrence
- [RRE]MediaMOO annual birthday symposia: 1/20 Bruce Mitchener, Jr.
- [RRE]MediaMOO annual birthday symposia: 1/20 Koster, Raph
- OT: Mike Sellers needs some help load testing J C Lawrence
- Keegan's MUD Tree J C Lawrence
- Intelligent WebGlimpse archive searching at Kanga.Nu Marian Griffith
- Intelligent WebGlimpse archive searching at Kanga.Nu Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Intelligent WebGlimpse archive searching at Kanga.Nu Dominic J. Eidson
- Intelligent WebGlimpse archive searching at Kanga.Nu J C Lawrence
- Intelligent WebGlimpse archive searching at Kanga.Nu Marian Griffith
- GRASS GIS Web Site Elis Pomales
- Thoughts Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- mobile movement (the fault of tracking) quzah [softhome]
- ADMIN Name server problems and upes J C Lawrence
- Adjective Server Christopher Allen
- Reputations, More Mazes Eli Stevens {KiZurich}
- Reputations, More Mazes J C Lawrence
- Reputations, More Mazes Eli Stevens {KiZurich}
- Mules (was something different) Marian Griffith
- Mules (was something different) J C Lawrence
- Mules (was something different) Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
- Levels versus Skills Marian Griffith
- Levels versus Skills Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Levels versus Skills J C Lawrence
- Levels versus Skills quzah [softhome]
- Levels versus Skills Vladimir Prelovac
- Levels versus Skills quzah [softhome]
- Levels versus Skills J C Lawrence
- Levels versus Skills Petri Virkkula
- Levels versus Skills J C Lawrence
- Levels versus Skills Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- From Devmud: Database module, draft 3 Greg Connor
- Matrix Game Ling
- Graphic design doc Thinus Barnard
- Graphic design doc Chris Gray
- ADMIN: List server and Kanga.Nu host changes J C Lawrence
- ADMIN: List server and Kanga.Nu host changes Koster, Raph
- Sockets and fibers Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Sockets and fibers Adam J. Thornton
- Sockets and fibers Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Sockets and fibers J C Lawrence
- Sockets and fibers Jon A. Lambert
- Sockets and fibers Adam J. Thornton
- Sockets and fibers Dr. Cat
- Sockets and fibers Jo Dillon
- [DevMUD] From Devmud: Database module, draft 3 Greg Connor
- META: list "peerage" Koster, Raph
- META: list "peerage" John Bertoglio
- META: list "peerage" diablo@best.com
- META: list "peerage" Andy Cink
- META: list "peerage" Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- META: list "peerage" Quzah [softhome]
- META: list "peerage" Michael.Willey@abnamro.com
- META: list "peerage" Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- META: list "peerage" Holly Sommer
- META: list "peerage" Travis S. Casey
- META: list "peerage" Andy Cink
- META: list "peerage" Quzah [softhome]
- META: list "peerage" Matthew D. Fuller
- META: list "peerage" Laurel Fan
- META: list "peerage" Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- META: list "peerage" David Bennett
- META: list "peerage" Bruce Mitchener, Jr.
- META: list "peerage" diablo@best.com
- META: list "peerage" Matthew D. Fuller
On Tue, Jan 26, 1999 at 10:11:44AM -0800, a little birdie told me
that Caliban Tiresias Darklock remarked
>
> >> It's actually the
> >> same problem I see in the PC market with Windows (don't get me started on
> >> that rant).
>
> Which in turn was the reason many of us old timers shunned the Mac.
> Recently, I've been looking at Macs and PCs and seeing so little difference
> I'm actually giving serious consideration to the purchase of a G3 box. I
> mean, originally, I thought the Mac was ridiculous because of its stupid
> interface and paranoid concealment of every O/S aspect behind a thick wall
> of chrome. Now I look at Windows and go hey, this is precisely what I hated
> about the Mac, and precisely why I didn't buy one, and now I have it anyway.
Note that I don't ;)
> There's a middle ground, though. I think MS should, for example, be bundling
> Visual Basic with Windows instead of IE; IE is primarily a passive,
> spectator thing. VB is active. (Posit: The web has made the computer
> analogous to the television and the internet analogous to cable. Discuss.
> Not on this list, of course, but discuss.) The question is not so much
> whether you can set up easily or progress to great heights, the question
> falls more along the lines of how much you need to know to start with and
> how easy it is to learn more.
I agree totally that a middle ground is necessary. Though I'm sure I
fall more into the 'elitist' 'steep learning curve' group than what is
objectively best (that's just the way I am). But the shallower the curve
is, the more people you'll get that jump in on the low end and never even
CONSIDER going beyond it. I have a Chaung Tsu quote that fits nicely in
here, but it's in a book at home...
> Observation: Learning is a skill. If you do a lot of it, you get good at it.
> If you don't do any for a while, you get out of practice.
Expansion: Once you're in practice, and in situations where it's
reasonable, you tend to keep in practice. And vice versa. Lots of
intertia applies there.
> There are opposite ends of the spectrum, neither of which works very well.
[snip extreme examples]
Agreed. At the low end, you have too much crap to wade through to get to
the few 'good' places/people/ideas/etc. At the high end, it just gets
too sparse, though most of what's left is 'good'. It's just like playing
a Civ-type game; too little taxes you go broke, too many your people
revolt. Some sort of middle ground is necessary, but you'll never get
any two people to agree on where it is ;) (especially me, I'm really
stubborn)
> Once upon a time, you could honestly say that probably 80% of the internet's
> population had these skills to a reasonable enough degree that they could
> either run a MUD immediately or learn to do so in a short period. That's not
> the case anymore. We have people on the net who know almost squat. People
> who ask how they can use some feature on their web page, and then get
> confused by the words "tag" and "code" and ask for explanations of what a
> notepad is and how they get their web page to open in it, and what do I mean
> by "cut and paste"?
Then again, a lot of people would argue that if you can't swim, get outta
the ocean. It doesn't take much intelligence to click through porn
pages and play bingo on the internet. It DOES take intelligence as well
as hard work to make a decent mud. Despite what I may do for a living,
my C skills are hardly outstanding, but I understand thoroughly better
than 95% of the ROM code (yes, I admit it, I have a ROM mud I play with),
and I have the basis of my own personal Ultimate Mud hashed out. I've
never had any formal training; what I know about C is from reading the K&R
book long ago, trial and error, and reading manpages. Makefiles, all from
reading existing ones and the manpage.
It's a significant investment of time to be sure; but then, so should
running a MUD. Should you have to spend years studying? No, but you
shouldn't grab a kit and run 'install.bat' and be done with it. I think
I can feel pretty confident saying that there is NO base system you will
ever find that you can customize to exactly the way you want your world
without touching code, unless it was made for practically exactly what
you want to do anyway.
I hold a rather extreme view, but that's party because the status quo is
(IMO) too far to the other extreme, so I'm trying to counterbalance a
little.
> What we need to do is provide a stairstep progression. One step after
> another, with each step accessible and easily achieved, building on the
> previous height attained. It may be valuable to look at administration as
> yet another class or 'ladder' in your game; certainly it would benefit from
> many of the same rules and observations made recently about player/character
> progress.
Indeed. Interesting meta-approach; maybe a mud of muds, where higher
'level' players get more 'stuff' on their sub-muds...
The problem is you have to make the person WANT to learn more; too much
mentality these days is 'I want to know as little as possible, but I
still want everything to do what I want it to', which is a good deal of
why Windows/Mac are so popular. You have to somehow break around that to
really succeed, and that's pretty tough to do.
---
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
| Matthew Fuller http://www.over-yonder.net/~fullermd |
* fullermd@futuresouth.com fullermd@over-yonder.net *
| UNIX Systems Administrator Specializing in FreeBSD |
* FutureSouth Communications ISPHelp ISP Consulting *
| "The only reason I'm burning my candle at both ends, |
* is because I haven't figured out how to light the *
| middle yet" |
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* - META: list "peerage" Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- META: list "peerage" Brandon A Downey
- META: list "peerage" Travis Casey
- META: list "peerage" Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- META: list "peerage" Dominic J. Eidson
- META: List "peerage" Marian Griffith
- META: List "peerage" Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- META: list "peerage" Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- META: list "peerage" Sayeed
- Mugu Chris Gray
- META: List peerage and behaviour J C Lawrence
- META: list "peerage" Chris Gray
- ADMIN: We're working again. J C Lawrence
- Java I/O and threads. Elis Pomales
- Java I/O and threads. Jo Dillon
- Java I/O and threads. cynbe@muq.org
- Java I/O and threads. Jo Dillon
- Java I/O and threads. Elis Pomales
- Reset Death Wes Connell
- Reset Death Quzah [softhome]
- Reset Death Wes Connell
- Reset Death Mik Clarke
- Reset Death Andrew C.M. McClintock
- Reset Death Mik Clarke
- PvP and mob capacities (was "List Peerage") Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- combat diablo@best.com
- META: list "peerage" Darrin Hyrup
- META: list "peerage" J C Lawrence
- Telmaron and Mud servers was: META: list "peerage" Elis Pomales
- META: list "peerage" Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- META: list "peerage" Ben Greear
- Who is? (was about level vs skills) Marian Griffith
- Who is? (was about level vs skills) Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- exploration points diablo@best.com
- [MUD-Dev] Juha Lindfors
- Stock Mud Demographics ##Make Nylander
- ADMIN: Off-topic and the ever present reminders on quoting. J C Lawrence
- Mud reviewing Andy Cink
- Mud reviewing Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Mud reviewing diablo@best.com
- Mud reviewing Andru Luvisi
- Mud reviewing diablo@best.com
- Mud reviewing J C Lawrence
- Mud reviewing Dan Shiovitz
- Mud reviewing diablo@best.com
- Mud reviewing Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Mud reviewing diablo@best.com
- Mud reviewing Richard Woolcock
- Mud reviewing David Bennett
- Mud reviewing Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- MUD Admin skills Hal Black
- Subdue Holly Sommer
- processors diablo@best.com
- processors John Bertoglio
- processors Wes Connell
- processors Laurel Fan
- processors Mik Clarke
- processors J C Lawrence
- processors diablo@best.com
- processors Quzah [softhome]
- processors Mik Clarke
- processors J C Lawrence
- processors Marc Hernandez
- processors Adam Wiggins
- processors Greg Underwood
- processors Adam Wiggins
- processors Chris Gray
- processors gunderwood@donet.com
- processors Jon A. Lambert
- processors Greg Underwood
- processors Petri Virkkula
- quests involving players diablo@best.com
- quests involving players Darren Henderson
- quests involving players Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- quests involving players Richard Woolcock